Electrosurgical systems are used during surgical procedures to remove several different tissue types. For example, procedures involving the knee or shoulder may remove portions of cartilage, meniscus, and free floating and/or trapped tissue. In some cases, the removal may be a very slight removal, such as tissue sculpting, and in other cases more aggressive removal of tissue is used. Electrosurgical systems may also operate in a coagulation mode, to seal arterial vessels exposed during tissue removal, and sealing to reduce bleeding.
Regardless of whether the electrosurgical system is used for tissue removal or for coagulation, electrosurgical systems may conform to certain standards set by standard setting organizations (e.g., International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)) that limit the amount of energy over time that can be applied as part of the procedure.
Any advance that increases performance of electrosurgical systems, yet still enables the electrosurgical system to conform to the various standards, would provide a competitive advantage.